Portuguese Alphabet - Letter Names and Pronunciations

Letter Names and Pronunciations

Only the most frequent sounds are given below, since a listing of all cases and exceptions would be too cumbersome. Portuguese is a pluricentric language, and the pronunciation of some of the letters is different in European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Apart from these variations, the pronunciation of most consonants is fairly straightforward, and similar to French or Catalan pronunciation. Only the consonants r, s, x, z, the digraphs ch, lh, nh, rr, and the vowels may require special attention from English speakers.

Although many letters have more than one pronunciation, their phonetic value is often predictable from their position within a word; this is normally the case for the consonants (except x). Since only five letters are available to write the fourteen vowel sounds of Portuguese, the orthography of the vowels is more complex, but even in this case pronunciation is predictable to a degree. Knowing the main inflectional paradigms of Portuguese can be helpful in this regard.

In the following table and in the remainder of this article, the phrase "at the end of a syllable" can be understood as "before a consonant, or at the end of a word". For the letter r, "at the start of a syllable" means "at the beginning of a word, or after l, n, s". For letters with more than one common pronunciation, their most common phonetic values of are given on the left side of the semicolon; sounds to the right of it occur only in a limited number of positions within a word. Sounds separated by "~" are allophones or dialectal variants.

The names of the letters are masculine.

Letter	Name		Phonetic values
	Spelling	Pronunciation
Aa	á	/a/	/a/, /ɐ/
Bb	bê	/be/	/b/
Cc	cê	/se/	/k/; /s/ nb 1
Dd	dê	/de/	/d/ ~ nb 2
Ee	é	/ɛ/, /e/	/e/, /ɛ/, /i/,nb 3 /ɨ/, /ɐ/, /ɐi/
Ff	éfe	/ˈɛfi/ (BP), /ˈɛfɨ/ (EP)	/f/
Gg	gê (BP or EP) or guê (EP only)	/ʒe/, /ɡe/	/ɡ/; /ʒ/ nb 1
Hh	agá	/aˈɡa/ (BP), /ɐˈɡa/ (EP)	silent nb 4
Ii	i	/i/	/i/ nb 3
Jj	jota	/ˈʒɔtɐ/	/ʒ/
Kk	cá (BP) or capa (EP)	/ka/, /ˈkapɐ/	nb 5
Ll	éle	/ˈɛli/ (BP), /ˈɛlɨ/ (EP)	/l/ ~ nb 6
Mm	éme	/ˈẽmi/ (BP), /ˈɛmɨ/ (EP)	/m/ nb 7
Nn	éne	/ˈẽni/ (BP), /ˈɛnɨ/ (EP)	/n/ nb 7
Oo	ó	/ɔ/	/o/, /ɔ/, /u/ nb 3
Pp	pê	/pe/	/p/
Qq	quê	/ke/	/k/
Rr	érre (EP and BP) or rê (mostly EP)	/ˈɛʁi/ (BP), /ˈɛʁɨ/ (EP)	/ɾ/, /ʁ/ nb 8
Ss	ésse	/ˈɛsi/ (BP), /ˈɛsɨ/ (EP)	/s/, /z/; nb 9 /ʃ/, /ʒ/
Tt	tê	/te/	/t/ ~ nb 2
Uu	u	/u/	/u/ nb 3
Vv	vê	/ve/	/v/
Ww	dáblio (BP) or dâblio (EP) / duplo vê	/ˈdabliu/	nb 5
Xx	xis (BP) or chis (EP)	/ʃis/, /ʃiʃ/	/ʃ/, /ks/; /z/, /s/, /ʒ/
Yy	ípsilon (BP or EP) or i grego (EP)	/ˈipsilõ/ (BP), /ˈipsɨlɔn/ (EP)	nb 5
Zz	zê	/ze/	/z/; /s/, /ʒ/, /ʃ/